Learning To Code Was The Worst Decision I Made As An Entrepreneur

Non-technical entrepreneurs often struggle finding someone to work on the coding portion of their startup ideas. They spend months networking, relentlessly pitching their projects to potential tech co-founders in the hopes of finding a software engineer who can execute the product side of their vision.

As someone who majored in English in college, I spent a few years being one of those non-tech people, too. Then I discovered something: coding is easy to learn.

I don’t mean coding is easy. And I don’t mean learning how to code is quick. I mean that, thanks to Google, anyone can teach themselves to code. The knowledge is out there and accessible, you just have to go get it.

And that’s what I did. I taught myself to code. I went from (bad) poetry-writer to (decent) code-writer, eventually building technology platforms capable of handling tens-of-thousands of users in the time it takes you to finish reading this article.

And I went beyond that. I began advising every non-technical entrepreneur I met to teach themselves how to code. “It’s not nearly as hard as you think,” I’d assure them. “Spend a month taking an online coding bootcamp, and you’ll be able to prototype almost anything you want. Plus, you’ll be surprised by how much fun it is.”